The air is crisp – not quite clear, nor free of the humidity that comes from life in a vast, damp, cave. But it is chillingly cold in your lungs, sharp and shocking, icicle-daggers in your throat with every inhalation.[1]
Xibalba is a desolate, mostly uninhabited Tomb-Colony, located a short zee voyage north of London and dating back to the Third City. Xibalba also refers to the lost city of Xibalba (the City of the White Scorpion), the place where the God-Eaters reside.[2][3]
Once, there were rivers here. [...] Estuaries, pumped through glass by the bargains of the Priest-Kings.[1]
The Tomb-Colony of Xibalba lies north of both Venderbight and Tanah-Cook, where pack-ice drifts along the waters of the Unterzee.[1] It is a desolate spit of land with little semblance of a harbor.[4] Limestone temples, built in a Mesoamerican style and eroded with age, can be seen from the shore.[5] Upon closer inspection, however, some of these buildings show signs of regular upkeep.[6]
The Ravenglass Road
A black vein runs throughout this land - broad at the beginning, then narrowing down much like a dagger.[7] This aptly named Ravenglass Road is the result of tectonic activity creating a fissure within a now-dry riverbed - the result of the Priest-Kings' deal with the Masters.[8] The solidified ravenglass is jagged and sharp, making travel on its surface dangerous.[9] The river's original name is unknown, but apparently had to do with either blood or pus.[10]
The Lords of the Crossroad
Near what passes for a harbor, there is a crossroads marked by three towering stalagmites; a crevice in one of these holds what appears to be a body.[11] Tradition dictates that visitors should prostrate themselves to greet the lords of this colony.[12] However, upon further inspection, the bodies in the stalagmites are mere mannequins,[13] placed there for the amusement of the lords - who took great pleasure in the humiliation of the pilgrims as they bowed down to false idols.[14]
This crossroad leads four ways: the black ravenglass road to the west; a red road to the east, its pavement engraved with designs of feathers and wings;[15];a white alabaster road leading north and a yellow limestone road leading south.[1] Both the white and red road end in sudden drops.
Other Vistas
A gladitorial arena is hewn directly into the ravenglass.[16] The human remains indicate faithful followers of the Priest-Kings[17], but it is unclear whether they were willing sacrifices or political prisoners.[1]
A lonely tree has survived on the edge of the dried river, bearing fruits in the shapes of skulls. According to legend, each skull belonged to an enemy of the Priest-Kings.[18]
History
Xibalba had been a Tomb-Colony like any other, but became the main centre of power for the Priest-Kings once the Third City began to decline. The once great city is now lost,[3] and left is only a barren landscape with the odd temple strewn across it. However...
Xibalba Ascendant
You shamble along darkened causeways, through palace complexes. All here is blood sport and obeisance, black glass temples to the night-suns, to the Serpent, the Bird, the Cat.[19]
The lost city of Xibalba, also known as The City of the White Scorpion, currently exists somewhere between the Is and the Is-Not.[20] It is a dark place, filled with smoke and dust, with temples of glass, and a black glass sky.[20][21][19] Its streets are inhabited by Tomb-Colonists, but upon closer inspection, all of them leak black smoke from their bandages - the telltale sign of inhabitation by a Priest-King. In fact, the city is empty except for the Priest-Kings. All the bodies found there are mere marionettes for them.[22] Waking minds are even driven out entirely.[23]
Priests of the Copper hope to one day be able to visit the city of Xibalba. One way to do so involves performing a blood-sacrifice.[24]
An Ill-Fated Voyage
Perhaps they know the Name. Perhaps they took it and hid it behind a black mirror. What do you think of that, eh?[25]
As a result of a drunk captain and a little intrigue, a group of around six travelers once ended up on Xibalba, and, if their recountings are to be believed, even the City of the White Scorpion itself. Most of the travelers still suffer from nightmares to this day. Among the group was the Northbound Parliamentarian, who noted that those she met feared the Name and the ones seeking it.[26][27][28][29][30][25]
Trivia
Most of the Neath's supply of Ravenglass and Black Lenses is mined on Xibalba.[31][32]
Real Life Inspiration
Xibalba (pronounced Shi-ball-baa [ʃiɓalˈɓa]) is the name of the underworld in Mayan Mythology. Translated from K'iche' it means roughly 'place of fear'. The Popol Vuh describes Xibalba as a court below the surface of the earth. It is ruled by the two leading gods of death and ten lesser, but still very powerful demons in charge of all sorts of human suffering. These twelve rulers are referred to as the Ajawab, the 'Lords of Xibalba'. Entrance to Xibalba was thought, among other places, in the Guatemalan section of the Chiquibul cave system. According to Mayan belief, this underworld is not a place of punishment, like the christian translation made it out to be, but simply the next part of a person's journey after their body has died.[33][34][35]
The Xibalba described in The Path of Blood and Smoke takes great inspiration from the Xibalba described in the second chapter of the Popol Vuh.[36][37] The ancient text describes among other things:
Three rivers (a rapid one, one leading through thorny calabash trees/scorpions and one of blood).
The red, yellow, white and black roads, of which the black road has to be followed. In Mayan culture, these colours are associated with the cardinal directions.
The mannequins at the crossroads, who exist solely to mock the people who greet them.
The House of Jaguars, one of many houses of punishment.
A miraculous calabash tree that grew fruits indistinguishable from the human skull placed in it.
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Here, the waters of Shepherd’s Wash transform into the icy depths of Void’s Approach; further North than anybody sensible and warm-blooded would voluntarily live."
↑ 3.03.1The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London""Once it was just another tomb-colony. But after the Third fell into ruin and disrepair, the Priest-Kings took it for their own. [...] After that, the people called it Xibalba – 'the place of fright'. [...] It's lost, now. Hidden from the Neath by the arts of the Priest-Kings, a dark haven for them and their faithful.""
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Stepped temple complexes in grey and weathered limestone rise from the ice. Stucco facades depict bulbous scenes, made indistinct by time and moss. Monoliths hewn from darker mineral, black like starlight, dot the landscape, and causeways – paved with flat slabs of blueish rock mined from the Neath itself – criss-cross the wastes."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Only the altar is clear of moss – clear of any kind of foulness at all. The stone shines as if polished; while the floor beneath your feet is stained with drip-water and time, the altar is clean and bright. This place has seen regular upkeep."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"The land here terminates in a grey promontory, and the ravenglass road ends with it, narrowing to a point just before the earth falls away into the icy zee. The air above the tip – it is difficult not to think blade, the whole jagged road a ravenglass wound in the land itself – shimmers with heat."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Soon it becomes clear that the black glassy road is not something embedded into the ground – it has bubbled up from below, a vast flow of ancient ravenglass into which a flat channel has been carved. It shimmers beneath the False-Stars like dark water – a deep and frozen river, forced from the rock by violent tectonics."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"[...] the landscape is fierce and hungry. Your movements are paid for in small scrapes and abrasions; in the tiny crimson droplets beading upon your palms, your knees, your elbows."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London""This would have been... the River of Pus, I think. Or perhaps the River of Blood. [...] It is difficult with these ancient texts to separate the allegorical from the literal.""
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"They tower stilt-like above the crossroads, glassy black stalagmites. [...] There is something carved into it, a slight stepped recess, a little hollow in the tip of the stalagmite into which you might comfortably nestle. If, that is, the hollow were not occupied. By a body."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"[...] the figure's head tumbles from its neck. [...] The body creaks in its seat. It's a puppet! Nothing but a wooden mannequin, dressed up in Third City finery."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London""Not so much a trial as a cruel joke [...] Thinking they were in the presence of the rulers of their city, they would prostrate themselves before the thrones. [The Priest-Kings] preferred their subjects humiliated; diminished.""
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"The road is vibrant red, engraved with scenes of flight and chase. Avian imagery dominates, great crimson slabs adorned with feathers and wings"
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"The space is gladiatorial, cavernous, hewn directly from the colossal vein of ravenglass into stepped arenas of rough-hewn seating."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Whoever these people were, they were not poor. There is jade and cinnabar and hammered gold here, ear-plugs and torcs bearing the likenesses of Third City deities."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"The leaves are brittle and grey, and hanging pendulously from each black-boned branch is a fruit as white as ivory, and familiarly shaped. "The stories say each fruit is the skull of a hero who stood against the lords of Xibalba.""
↑ 19.019.1The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"You shamble along darkened causeways, through palace complexes. All here is blood sport and obeisance, black glass temples to the night-suns, to the Serpent, the Bird, the Cat."
↑ 20.020.1The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Dust and death and smoke and glass. This place is insubstantial as a dream – as a city glimpsed through a conflagration. A word rises unbidden in your mind: Xibalba. The lost tomb-colony, nestled here between Is and Is-Not."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"Glass gates and glass pillars shimmer in the smoke. Above, a black glass sky. The reflections of false-stars glitter like sharpened knives over the City of the White Scorpion."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"This is no one, a shell hollowed out by the voracious minds of one of this place's lords, the rulers and only inhabitants, a thousand times over, of this black lost kingdom. Other bodies shamble around the City of the White Scorpion, leaking trails of vapour, the traces of a Priest-King's inhabitation. Once, perhaps, these were people, whole and entire, selfhoods full to bursting with idiosyncrasy. No longer; they have been eaten from within. Now only a hollow is left, barren enough to house your visiting mind without complaint."
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London"You do not belong here. Minds vaster and more ancient than your own swirl like an ill wind, driving you out, out, lest they take you within their fangs and—"
↑ 25.025.1The Northbound Parliamentarian, Fallen London""I got the captain drunk enough and he took us right there. They feared me, you know. They fear those who seek the Name. Perhaps we can undo everything they've built. Perhaps they know the Name. Perhaps they took it and hid it behind a black mirror. What do you think of that, eh?""
↑The Reclusive Turophile, Fallen London""Whether the captain was a drunken fool or just a drunk, I don't know. But we ended up in the wrong tomb-colony! An awful place. It was bad enough to have to leave at all, but this place! Ruled over by ancient tyrants! Serpent, Red Bird and Cat. He wasn't even a nice cat!""
↑The Bawdy Cardsharp, Fallen London""I don't know how drunk you have to be to miss a whole tomb-colony, but our captain managed it. The place we ended up was called Zi... Zib... something. I don't know how to say these d__ned foreign words. Anyway, I heard from one of the locals that the chaps in charge have been around for near a thousand years. And none of yer funny cider either. They pass from body to body, like rats fleeing a house. Or bats out of a belfry... you can see them sometimes, in the streets, or fancy you can. A sort of smoke, around the bandages. They're not like the other tomb-colonists. But sometimes I wonder if they were the first...""
↑The Libertarian Esotericist, Fallen London""Well, you see our captain was a drunk. And he landed at the wrong tomb-colony. I tried to make notes, but something about the place isn't conducive to a written record... let me see. A river of scorpions: did I imagine that? Was it a metaphor for something? ...no, I can recall quite clearly the sound of the thing. Like a school-yard full of vicious children. They would take bets, you know, on who might sink fastest... but it's the abysm-glass that haunts me. If you ever go there, don't look into it. But don't ever go there." He talks more of the horrors of the City of the White Scorpion. You won't sleep easily tonight."
↑The Cat-Beset Perfectionist , Fallen London""I don't want to speak ill of the chap, but the fact was our captain was a drunk. He landed us at the wrong port. It turns out that there's more Tomb-Colonies than most people think. The ones commonly known are the pleasant ones. The ones the... they don't mind you seeing. The port where we put in... like a slice out of a different time, do y'see? A time before the Kings shrivelled. Glass gates, glass pillars... I tried to paint it. I tried.. The canvas isn't safe to burn, what's left of it. I keep it in my lumber-room, where I can't hear it of a night.." There's more, though the details become incoherent. Was this a real voyage or a honey-dream?"
↑The Paronomastic Newshound, Fallen London""I've never been sure. It might just have been Venderbight. That d__n fool of a captain got us lost. We were delayed a week, and when we landed... we were fierce with thirst and half-mad with terror. We didn't know what we were seeing. Dust and death and smoke and glass. Dust and death and smoke and glass..." His eyes grow misty, and his voice acquires a sing-song rhythm: but then he snaps out of it. "Three of them: the Snake, the Red Bird, the Cat. I think they started human, but it's hard to tell now. We came knocking, and they gave us water, and their price wasn't so very high. Write a headline for that, eh? But listen: if you ever end up there, know this. They play games, and they don't cheat. We only got out because the Cardsharp beat them at rummy.""
↑The Path of Blood and Smoke, Fallen London""Most of the ravenglass in the Neath is mined from here," says the Lace-Wrapped Emissary. "They send workers from Venderbight to chip it away. When they can be spared from constructing the Sanatoria.""
